Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Erasing the 1994 Strike: League Leaders (Part the Third)

Episode Date: June 7, 2020

Jon Miller & a semi-coherent D.C. Lundberg continue to look at the league leaders of 1994, and project out their stats to see if the league leaders may have changed had the season been played to completion. Today, they discuss the pitching leaders for the first time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Thank you for tuning in to Locked-on Mariners, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Here's your host, D.C. Lundberg. Well, gang, it is the end of the week, although I think my brain decided to check out on Wednesday. However, this is Locked-On Mariner's part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, or T-L-O-P-N or T-O-P-N-O-P-N-Lop-N-N-C-Lop-N-N-C-Lop-N-Rawpand-B-T-WP-T-WP-P-P-T-F-P-P-P-T-F-P-T-RRRRRRRRRR, or whichever podcasting. up you personally care to use. Ask your smart device to play locked on Mariner's podcast or any of the other programs here on Tlopin. Follow this program on Twitter at L-O-U-O-U-U-N-R-N-R-G, and follow me on Twitter at D.C. underscore Lund-U-N-D-B-E-R-G for those scoring at home. I did it in one take. Yes! Anyways, pitching today, 1994. We're doing the same thing we did the last couple of shows.

And here with me to do that again, after that horrible intro, is, Locked on, Mariner's contributor, John Miller. John, I'm losing my mind. Well, I'm glad one of us is saying D.C. Yeah, that's, see, this is why, this isn't why I'm having you on the show this week, but this is a very good reason to have you on these particular episodes. Well, it's a pleasure to be here. I appreciate that, John.

It's always a pleasure to have you on this program. Yesterday, we kind of wrapped up the hitting statistics for both National American League, batting races, RBI races, home run races in 1994. projecting out the individual player statistics to see if the leaderboards in those categories may have changed. Some of them did. Some of them did not. Today we're going to start to do the same thing with pitching, and this is probably going to go at least two shows. We're going to start in the National League pitching race, and we are going to begin with ERA

because that is the least interesting as far as I'm concerned. And we all have Greg Maddox to think about that because he had a 156 ERA in real life. and the next guy down from him was Brett Saberhagen with 274. And in this projection, the projection I have for 1994 at the end of the season, Greg Maddox was very, very consistent. His whip barely budges, hits per nine innings. His statistics barely move at all. He gains two points on a ZRA going from 156 to 158.

Home runs per nine innings goes down by point, walks per nine innings goes up a little bit, home runs per nine innings remain exactly where they are. I've also got him projected, John, for now a 22 and 10 record, as opposed to the 16 and 6 record he has in real life. Oh, my goodness. It's, I mean, what can we say about Greg Maddox that has not been said already?

The man was just incredible, kind of a throwback from an earlier era pitching in the 1990s. In real life, he gave up 35 earned runs all year in 202 innings. And in this projection, I've got him giving up only 50 earned runs in 285 and two-thirds innings, only six home runs. And that's in the projection. In real life, only four home runs giving up all season.

That's just unheard of. Do you happen to have his projection for 1995? John, as a matter of fact, I do have his 1995 statistics, statistics, rather, projected out. These are kind of duplicating what the Braves did in their first 18 games. It's harder for pitchers because of the rotation and whatnot. So I'm basing them off team games and not individual games. But in any case, he gains two more wins, no more losses.

So he would go to 21 and 2 for the 1995 season. his season innings total goes to 233 even. He gains, he gives up 16 more hits, six more earned runs. During this time period, his ERA was 231. So as ERA goes up from 163 to 170, that's ridiculous, cut him, he's useless. No. He gives up one more home run for a season total of now nine, four more walks for now a season total.

And this is the projection, ladies and gentlemen, remember this, of 27 walks. In real life, he only gave up 23 walks in the 1995 season. This was just a very special pitcher. In the 1995 season, he struck out 181 batters. And in this projection, I've got him at 201. He was not, and you mentioned this while we were off air, John, that he wasn't really one to break the 200 strikeout barrier, although, you know, with him painting the corners and whatnot,

and with the movement he had on his pitches, he could get the strikeout. 201 strikeouts in this aggregate here, and the 1994 projection is 219 strikeouts. Wow. That paints him just in a little bit of a different light. There are a number of years where he kind of flirted with 200 and just never got there,

kind of like his 19 win seasons, or I think he had like five 19 win seasons or something, or he just flirted with 20 and only got there a couple times? There were quite a few of them, yes. And the interesting part about the 219 strikeout projection I have for 1994, his season strikeouts per nine actually goes down in this projection. In real life, it was 7.0 into projection at 6.9. Well, I think, like you said, cut him, because we just can't live with that.

Exactly. I mean, we could probably spend an entire week talking about Greg Maddox, but I don't think we're going to do that. Let's move on to the number two man in terms of ERA in the National League. And that, ladies and gentlemen, was Brett Saberhagen. Let's see how he did at the end of 1994 to kind of duplicate what he may have done in real life. His ERA goes down during his last few starts. And each starter, by the way, ladies and gentlemen,

gains about 10 more starts. So other than batterers where you may see a 1 or 2 point swing in batting average or maybe even a 5 or 10 point swing, you're going to see larger swings in earned run average here. And Sabre Hagen is a perfect example. In real life, his ERA was 274. To end the 1994 season, his ERA was 178 in the projection that I'm using. So his season ERA goes down 30 points in this projection for the season.

and it's 244, and he has 214 strikeouts in this projection, five fewer than Maddox. I really don't have anything to say to that. That's very impressive. It's very impressive, although it's also about 30 innings fewer than Maddox. Although here's Sabre-Hagen in this projection, 258 in a third innings, that just doesn't happen anymore. No, I was noticing that with Maddox, too.

Maddox had almost 300 innings in my projection. It was around 285. It was 285 and a third or two-thirds. I forget exactly what it was, but, you know, the ERA race in the National League really is not that interesting just because Maddox was running away with it. So we're going to pause for the Mariners trivia question and move on to the strikeout and win totals in the National League.

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Buhner later scored on a wild pitch from Hillogas, two batters later. More Locked-on Mariners after a word from Postmates. If you're the type who starts thinking about what to eat for dinner while you're eating lunch, then you will love using Postmates. They deliver food from just about any restaurant you can think of right to your door. But Postmates just doesn't deliver chicken, burgers, and sushi. Oh, no, sir.

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To start your free deliveries, download the app and use code locked on. That's code locked on for $100 of free delivery credit. credit with no minimum purchase for your first seven days when you download the Postmates app. Anything you need, any time you need it, postmate it. Welcome back to Locked-on Mariners. Once again, your host, D.C. Lundberg. Thank you very much, J.M. We are indeed back on Locked-on Mariners, or at least I'm back, so to speak, as it were. I'm not sure my mind is back yet, but we'll get through this.

And, oh, my, what's going on. In any case, we're talking about the pitching statistics in 1994, projecting those out as if the strike never happened to see what may have happened. To the season leader boards, we dealt with ERA already in the National League. We're going to get to the American League next week. ERA was rather uninteresting. Wins is actually pretty interesting, even though it's something of a team statistic. Greg Maddox and Ken Hill were the league leaders in wins with 16. Brett Saber Hagen and Danny Jackson each had 14 wins,

and Tom Glavin had 13 wins. We've already talked about Maddox a little bit, and he goes to 22 wins, I believe, if memory serves, and it should, because we just talked about him a couple minutes ago. And my memory does indeed not fail me, 22 wins. So 22, the leader in the clubhouse right now with Maddox. Ken Hill also had 16 wins. He also gains six more wins. He also has 22 wins, John. I didn't.

And remember, he was an expo at this time. And the expos, this was the good expo season that was, you know, very tragically erased. Yeah, some have projected that the expos could very well have gone all the way, and this would have been their time to do it. So it's tragic that it got erased, and Kinhill's stats are just a testament to how good they were. Yeah, you're absolutely right. And remember, there was a young Pedro Martinez on this staff as well, who we will talk about in a little bit, but Ken Hill was kind of the veteran presence, the anchor on that pitching staff.

And we're talking about individual statistics here, projecting out 1994. There have been so many other people who have projected out the postseason and which team may have won. And I don't, I'm not smart enough to do that anyway. But Ken Hill's ERA actually goes up a little bit in this projection to 341. It was 332. He did not strike out as many people per nine innings during this projection. and he walked a few more.

However, I mean, you cannot argue with a 3-4-1 ERA, especially in that high of an offensive, when offense was that high. No, that's a pretty good ERA. It is indeed. We also talked about Sabre Hagen a little bit. He was one of the two pitchers who had 14 wins, and his season total goes up to 21.

He gains seven wins and only one loss. So his record in this projection is 21 and 5. We already talked about his strikeouts and his earned run average. So with Ken Hill and Greg Maddox still tied at 21 wins, that puts Saber Hagen in third place with 21 wins. And also tied with Sabre Hagen was Danny Jackson with 14 wins. And that was not exactly a very strong Philadelphia Phillies team. Even though they had just been to the World Series,

I'm sorry to the Phillies fans out there, they did kind of overachieve in 1993. What do you think, John? I think they did, yes. I think it's fair to say. Danny Jackson, however, was pretty consistent in this sample size that I've got him with. He gains six wins, as did Maddox and Hill. So his season win total goes to 20, but he also gains five losses.

And that's not really a testament to how poorly he did during the stretch because he actually did okay during the stretch. He did very well. 355 ERA during the 6 and 5 stretcher. He gains 11 starts. And walks per 9 innings during the sample size is only 1.7. So his season total in that category actually goes down. And he ends the season in this projection with a 335 ERA

and a 20 and 11 record on a pretty poor team. That's a great season. That really is. And then moving on to the man in fifth place is Tom Glavin, who was pitching on a very good Atlanta Braves team. He had 13 wins for the season. And I am sensing a pattern here. He also gains six more wins, bringing his projected season total to 19 and 11, or his season record to 19 and 11. His ERA goes down.

When I think of Tom Glavin, I generally do not think of ERAs around 4.5. In real life, his ERA the season was 397. That's high for him. That's very high. However, the sample size that I'm using was a 333ERA. So his season projection is 376, which also is a little high for Glaven in terms of what I think of Glaven being. Looking up his career ERA is 354. It is 354.

You're absolutely right. And in 1993, his ERA was 320, the year before, 276, before that 255, and then it was almost four and a half before that. And this was his peak. He was 28 years old. 1994 was his age 28 season. And during this kind of five, six year stretch, that was kind of a rather high ERA for him. But still, I mean, you're going to take that in this era of high offense any day of the week. Yeah, certainly, and this would be the third year in a row that he had gotten very close to 20 wins and actually just fallen short.

Yes. He did make 20 wins later on in 1998, whereas ERA was an astounding 2.47. And then at age 34 in 2021 wins, these were just magnificent Braves teams. They only won the one world series. and when I think of the Braves from this era, it's pitching. Not 100% because their offense also was very, very good, very solid, but the pitching is what drove them.

Maddox and Glaven, John Smoltz, Steve Avery was very good for a while, and then after he moved on to the Red Sox, Kevin Millwood had some very good seasons. This is one of the best pitching staffs that I can recall in my lifetime. If you're a pitching coach anywhere, What you need to do is figure out what they did and try to replicate that because for about a decade, they had the best pitching staff in baseball. And they were not overpowering, although Smoltz was a power pitcher.

His strikeouts were there, but his control also was very good. Tom Glavin and Greg Maddox were the masters of control and deception, movement on their pitches, missing bats. It's kind of like the Mariners' philosophy with their starters, now, not necessarily their bullpen, because they try to fill their bullpen with power arms. But it's the Marco Gonzalez's of the world. They want to control the strike zone.

That's kind of what the Braves were doing back then. I'm not trying to compare the two because Marco Gonzalez obviously is nowhere near where Tom Glavin or Greg Maddox were. Few players are, but Gonzalez has a similar style. That style, when done right, appears to be very effective then.

and it'll be effective in pretty much any era because if you can change speeds, mess up the hitter's timing, and miss bats with movement on your pitches, you are going to be successful, whether it's 2020, 2000, 1995, or 1915. I don't care what error you're in.

That's the way to do it, I think. And we'll notice something, going back to Tom Glavon just for a second. Sure. That we also mentioned with Maddox. Tom Gladman never had over 200 strikeouts, and there's only twice that he had over 180. Yet he had 20 wins five times. Again, this is proof positive that you do not need to blow hitters away to be effective.

Obviously, there is a place for that. I mean, the Mariners had Randy Johnson. Let's not lose side of that. Although Johnson's control was pretty good once he found his release point, although he still walked more hitters than Glaven and Maddox combined. But you're absolutely right. And in this 1994 projection, I've got Glaven with 184 strikeouts right around that 180 mark that you mentioned earlier. Yeah, well, and that goes with what you had said, where this was right when he was kind of coming to his peak.

Yes, that's absolutely correct. And we're going to move on to the National League leaders and strikeouts just very briefly, because there are some of the same names on this list. we're going to go with the first two. Andy Benis led the league. Yes, former mariner Andy Benis led the National League with 189 strikeouts in 1994. And if I project that out,

that gives him an astounding total of 271 for the season and a strikeout per nine innings ratio of 10.1. For anybody, that's fantastic for, you don't expect Andy Benaz to be at the top of this list with those kind of numbers. You really don't, and especially considering how he pitched in Seattle, which was not

very effective. His record for the season, and this is in real life, was 6 and 14, which does not speak to how bad he was that season, because his numbers were very good. 386 ERA, which was very good for that time period. He did give up

20 home runs, but the 189 strikeouts, strikeout walk ratio of 9.9. These are his real life numbers. These are, this is a very, very good season for Andy Benis. The Padres just sucked that year. There's just no two ways about it. And in this projection, he's pretty consistent. His ERA only goes down four points, but he only gains one win and he gains five more losses for a projected season record of 7 and 19. With the other numbers I mentioned, it is awful that his team couldn't muster any support for him whatsoever, and he almost loses 20 games.

Well, and that go shit is exactly what you just said, that it's got to be the team wasn't supporting him. If he's striking out, projected 270 batters, if I remember correctly. 271. Yeah. If he's striking out that many, yet losing 19 games, the Padres were just awful. Yeah, and again, Tony Gwynn, 404 batting average projected out a few weeks ago. Same team. They had a few good pieces. That's about it. But moving on now to the number two strikeout men in the National League in 1994. By the way, Greg Maddox and Brett Saberhagen were three and four. We've already discussed them.

So the last pitcher we are going to discuss today is Jose Rejo, who finished with 171 strikeouts, in 1994, and his ERA is going to go down too. He had a 9-and-6 record in real life, 308 ERA, 171 strikeouts. He was on a pretty good streak going into the strike. He gains three wins and two losses for a combined 12-and-8 record in this projection, a 296 earned run average, and 246 strikeouts, 9.2 per nine innings. very, very good numbers from Jose Rejo here, John. Yeah, excellent.

And was he, correct me if I'm wrong, but was he the MVP of the 1990 World Series, or am I completely off base? You know, I don't remember. We're going to find, you know, he was. I see that right here on his baseball reference page, he was the MVP of the 1990 World Series. He went 2 and 0 against Oakland. He won games 1 and 4, and had an ERA for those two games of 05,9.

Jose Rejo was a pitcher. I think he had a lot of injury trouble a couple years later, and he was pretty much done at the age of 30, although he did come back later on. Here's a trivia question for you, ladies and gentlemen. Jose Rejo actually pitched a Major League game after receiving a Hall of Fame vote. His last game was 1995 until 2001.

He became eligible for the Hall of Fame while he was attempting a comeback, and his comeback was successful. And he pitched 44 games in 2001 and 2002 after he had become eligible for the Hall of Fame and received one vote. That doesn't happen very often, does it, John? No, it doesn't. And with that piece of trivia, we're going to go. Where can the nice people find you on Twitter, sir? I can we found it on Twitter at Seattle Pilot 69.

Very good. We'll have you back here next week. In the interim, please remember to download, rate, and subscribe to Lockdown Mariners on Google Podcast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher Radio, or whichever podcasting app that you can think of. Follow this program on Twitter at L.O. underscore Mariners. Follow me on Twitter at D.C. underscore Lundberg. Joining John and me on the next Lockdown Mariners are guest panelists, Punky Brewster, Boobber Fragel, and a giant. The five of us will discuss the pitching statistics in the American League in 1994 as if the strike never happened. Have a good weekend, ladies and gentlemen. This is Joey Martin speaking for Locked-on Mariners, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network. Ask your smart device to play Locked-on MLB upon the conclusion of this program.